Aquarium

So often we find ourselves so caught up in our everyday lives that we don't stop and take the time to go do something fun. I know my husband and I are both really bad about putting so many other things (especially working on the house) over anything else.

Last Saturday we decided to take the kids to the Aquarium. It was the first time in a while where the weather was really nice and it was just a great day to get out and go do something.

While I do love doing these things you must know I don't like crowded places and with little kids I stress even more with crowds. However even with the crowds, I think we all had a great time.

Here is a little bit of our fun:
They even have a big play area for the kids but it was extra crowded so we didn't stay and play. The boys did enjoy climbing on the large frogs.

Here were some living things they could touch. We were looking down at a star fish. It was pretty cool but we didn't touch it, just looked.

I love how up close and personal you can get with everything. I had smiles until the shark came and then they didn't care about the camera anymore.
Way cool to have it get this close. We were also up close with a big python snake but I didn't take any pictures of that. I must have been distracted by this really large snake right up at the glass checking out my kids.
I loved the Jelly Fish area. It is this nice dark room and the Jelly fish just glow. I couldn't use my flash and when I don't use my flash I don't get the best pictures but you can see how colorful they are.

Interestingly enough Luke remembers being stung by a Jelly fish on our vacation to Destin Florida (2 years ago). The water was full of Jelly fish on that trip and he was playing on the beach, running up and down away from the waves and still managed to get stung. They were really bad that summer.

He did still enjoy checking them out from behind the glass.

(My favorite photo from this trip, just wish I had more of Luke)

My favorite part of the aquarium are the really large tanks where you get to walk through these tunnels and you have fish above you and on both sides of you. These tanks are huge and some pretty big sea life inside.

For example you can have this big guy swimming over head.
See, see, see.... we had lots of this.
Look at the size of this turtle. Amazing!

Like I said by far my favorite part because the kids are just surrounded with lots to see.
Finally at the end they have tanks where you can touch things like small sharks. Neither boy actually touched anything but they tried.
Finally wouldn't you know it the exit is right through the gift shop. This is the face of a very upset boy because he could not have something from the gift shop.

Don't feel bad for him, he already has a couple of things from this very aquarium as it is not the first time he has gone.

They always come first.

My kids, this is who I am talking about. I put them and their needs and wants before anything else.

I decided to blog about this today because I recently noticed I have many things that are worn out, falling apart and in dyer need of replacing. But because I always put my kids first I never spend money on myself. Never! OK, not never but very rare and it usually isn’t something for my joy but something out of necessity. For example, my broken steam mop, I was lost with out it so I broke down and bought myself a new one. A mop doesn’t exactly bring the feeling of glamour to a gal.

I don’t buy new things like shoes or purses too often.

Tennis shoes…. New October 2007 thanks to my best friend Vicki who replaced the same tennis shoes that were really worn out. Funny thing, I would probably still be wearing those tennis shoes had she not bought the new ones for my birthday in 07.

My purse…. Christmas 2006 or 2007 (not sure)… bottom line is it is old and worn out. The strap is on its last leg and inside pretty worn out and yucky looking. Case in point just the other day I had a chicken nugget in it. Isn’t being a mother wonderful? Current condition of my purse is boarder-line bag lady. Seriously!

My leather gloves…. Old, at least 5 years old, maybe older… these were a Christmas gift and the fingers have holes in them. It is actually very embarrassing but they serve their purpose. Plus winter is almost over and I will make myself put them in the trash so next winter I have to buy a new pair.

My sun glasses are missing a screw but still holding on so I keep wearing them.

I don’t want you all to think I am this ratty person but I think you are getting the idea. I just don’t do for myself. I make money and spend it on the kids. They have new things out of necessity as they have out grown or wear things out. If it wasn’t for holiday’s I probably would never have new clothes, case in point all the things I listed above were all gifts.

Any time I do plan to splurge on myself something unexpected will occur and take my “mad” money away. Then when I really do have the extra money I can’t decide how I should spend it and then I struggle with spending it or I splurge it on the kids. I guess because I have so many things I would like to have I don’t know what I want/need more.

Right now I guess I am feeling worn out, literally. It seems everything I own is worn out and I could use new. I just can’t decide what is priority, necessity and/or where to even begin. It is so rare I give to myself that it isn’t easy for me to do.

My question for all of you, do you buy what you want when you want it? Do you treat yourself on occasion? Do you budget for things you want? Do you spend more on the kids than yourself?

Toys & Lego's

Our house is small and many of you have probably heard me complain from time to time about not having enough space. We have a room downstairs off the living room that is our office and our toy room. The boys share a very tiny bedroom so we don't keep toys in their room and they don't play upstairs either. This leaves sharing the office with the toys.

Often times this room makes me crazy because toys are often scattered all over the place. At Christmas time I found some shelves at IKEA that I had to have for the toy room. I recently got rid of a lot of baby toys and things that they just don't play with and came up with this wonderful set up for my toy room. If it doesn't fit here then it is time to say good bye to something.

Here is a photo of my toy room with my new shelves. Sorry, no clue why my picture is so fuzzy.

They had to pose and I just had to share the smiles of these cuties.
Now we do have the train table on the opposite side of the room and we do have baskets underneath with trains. I have a love/hate relationship with the train table. It is often torn apart and I just hate this large cumbersome table in this room. I will live with it until the day comes that my boys don't want to play trains anymore.

For Christmas Luke got a lot of Lego's. This boy will spend hours and hours building with Lego's. It is the Engineer in him, I know it. The problem is when he makes things he wants them put where his brother can not get them and take them apart. (I have broken up many fights between these two boys over Lego's)

Luke found a place for his Lego's but I am not a fan of where he has decided to put all his Lego's.
This is the top of the entertainment stand in the toy room. All my stuff has been pushed back to accommodate the mess of Lego's.
Yesterday, I cleaned off a couple shelves in the toy room and we filled them with Lego's. Now this only holds a little bit and I want the rest in the designated drawer below but he wont put them in the drawer because his brother will get them. Worst part is Thomas has a draw full of bigger Lego's that are his and he doesn't want those. He wants the cool things his brother has already made.

I still have lots of Lego's on top of my TV stand. But we did get a few of them up on the wall. Sigh!!!

I do love the creativity that Luke has. Here are a few of the things he has built and won't take apart and put away. We have many of these....

One Lego's ship/fighter of some sort. He loves Star Wars.

This one he made at Thanksgiving. Pretty good turkey if you ask me.

Finally, I think this is some type of sub or fighter ship. Not sure but still clever.

I must say the time he spends playing Lego's is worth the money we spend on them. Do your kids have something they can play with for hours on end?

OH NO SHE DIDN'T

I live in an old house and old houses seem to go hand-in-hand with mice. We have had at least one or two mice every winter for the last eight years we have lived here. Part of it is we have old stone foundation with lots of cracks and mice can squeeze through very tiny place, second we live with a huge field behind our house so they are inevitable.

Recently I was just boasting about how we have not had a mouse this year. This makes me really happy because I hate seeing evidence of a mouse in my house. Droppings are always my first warning... YUCK!!!! Time to set a trap.

Today, my stupid dog is trying to dig something out of my bathroom closet. We have the dog food bin right near their so I just assumed she was trying to get a dropped piece of dog food. Guess again....

Instead, I go walking through my living room and see her sitting on my area rug with a dead mouse. (I should look on the bright side at least she wasn't on my sofa with it) I see this and just hope as I walk up closer to her it isn't what I think it is but it is. First I am mad because it is just little Thomas and me at home. I can't have my 2 year old clean up the dead mouse and that just leaves me. I don't like living mice but dead ones gross me out even more. Especially after my dog has slobbered all over it as well. I am sure I am giving you all this great visual, sorry!

I get my dust pan and my little wisk broom and flip it into the dust pan. Then I spray my carpet with lots of carpet cleaner and vacuum. Mouse good and one dog literally in the dog house.

I took a picture but decided you all really did not want to see my dead mouse. Funny thing is I look at the picture and it is so tiny yet grosses me out so much.

Instead my little Thomas picked up my camera and took a picture of me as I am taking out the trash of the dead mouse. Go figure, he takes a good picture at the worst possible moment. Don't let the smile fool you, I wasn't happy just putting on a happy face for my little guy.

Why does stuff like this have to happen to me???? Can you handle a dead mouse?

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW

I can't tell everyone how much I am sick of the snow this year. A typical winter around here we will get hit with snow (couple inches) and then it will melt away before we get anymore.

This winter we have had three back-to-back snow storms bringing anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow each time. Luke's school is only one of very few in the area that hasn't maxed out snow days yet but they only have one left and we have a month to go.

We were supposed to get hit yesterday with another snow storm with possible accumulations of 12 inches however the temperatures were above freezing so we just had rain. YEAH!

I say yeah only because my porch finally clear of snow, the walk way has widened and my drive way has only a touch of snow still left on it.

I have not been in a picture taking mood lately so I have no pictures of my boys helping shovel snow or play in it. (Yes, I know bad mom).

I will leave you with these pictures from 2004 about 4 days before Christmas. We were slammed with a huge snow storm that year. This is Luke at the age of 2 out digging in the snow just loving it.

We actually had to go out our back-door after this storm because we could not get the front door open with the amount of snow that sat in front of it.

Anyway, this year has reminded me a bit of this snow storm. Not to say it was the same because we did not get this much snow all at one time just over the past three weeks with no chance for melting between each storm.

How is your weather this year? Anyone else ready for spring?